Building children and young people's digital resilience

The internet can be a useful resource for children and young people to learn, access educational materials and stay in touch with friends and family.

Now more than ever, young people are using tablets, laptops and mobile phones to interact with others, especially during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. But with this comes an increased risk of technology-assisted child sexual abuse (TA-CSA), bullying and grooming, which can affect children outside of the online world.

We invited practitioners from our InCtrl service, a preventative group-work programme, to talk about creating safer online experiences, building digital resilience and encouraging positive behaviour online.

Listen to the episode to find out about:

– developing InCtrl and how we've delivered the service virtually during the pandemic
– the risks and concerns related to the online world and how these can be prevented
– the importance of involving parents and carers when it comes to online safety
– how we’ve listened to children and young people’s views and built on this learning.

Nicola McConnell is a Senior Evaluation Officer at the NSPCC, with over 20 years of experience in evaluating health and social care services for children and families. She has contributed towards a range of evaluations across different topic areas, such as child protection, domestic abuse and preventing child abuse, and recently published an implementation evaluation of the InCtrl service.

About the speakers
Gurpreet Dosanjh is a Team Manager based at the NSPCC’s Coventry service centre and has 10 years of social work experience working with vulnerable children and families. She has been a practitioner for four years within the NSPCC and has worked for various services, including the InCtrl service.

Lucy O’Callaghan is a Children’s Services Practitioner and was involved in the adaptation of the InCtrl programme for virtual delivery. She has worked across a number of NSPCC services in the last seven years, on topics ranging from sexual abuse to harmful sexual behaviour and child sexual exploitation.

Theresa Park is a qualified social worker with over 20 years of experience of working within the children’s services sector. She is currently a Development and Impact Manager at the NSPCC and leads on building an evidence base of what works in child welfare and protection.